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I've got a ragtag collection of external usb2 drives - three 2.5" drives and two 5.25" drives, all bought on the cheap from the computer markets.
The 2.5" drives are all 80Gb capacity, 4200rpm, which makes them a bit on the slow side but still ok for astronomy.
The 5.25" drives are 160Gb and 200Gb (7200rpm) and require external power. (The 2.5" drives are bus powered off usb).
I'd suggest avoiding enclosures with fans and instead go for all aluminium ones that dissipate heat passively, just make sure you leave them plenty of air. I've had some that had fans in the past and the fans inevitable stop working and the drives overheat and fail.
I don't know how you will go with sharing the usb between the camera and the hard disks, that might be asking for trouble, but I have no problems with combining a firewire camera and usb2 hard drive.
The drives I've measured top out at around 20Mbytes/sec transfer speed, plenty fast enough for some things.
regards, Bird
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